


Hero

by Mottlemoth



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Emergency situations, F/F, Fire Exposes Our Priorities, Heroic Sally, Hospital Bedside Feelings, Pre-Romance, Secret Crush, St Bartholomew's Hospital
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-07
Updated: 2017-11-07
Packaged: 2019-01-30 16:00:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,176
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12656784
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mottlemoth/pseuds/Mottlemoth
Summary: When a deadly fire breaks out at St. Barts, Molly Hooper is unaccounted for. One person cares enough to go charging into the flames.





	Hero

 

By the time Sally reached the scene, the smoke was a storey high above St Bart's. It was billowing in black and grey from ground floor windows at the side of the building. Sprawled on the pavement nearby was the Freak, sooty-faced and with his precious coat charred to hell, being tended to by the ex-army doctor who definitely wasn't in love with him.

"What happened?" Sally demanded as she reached them, staring in horror up at the smoke.

John Watson barely seemed to see her, too busy pouring bottled water over the Freak's burned hands.

"I don't know," he said, stressed and sharp. "There was a crack from the storage room, and a bloody great bang - then smoke was just gushing everywhere... didn't even think to smash the fire panel..."

"Right," said Sally. "Rest of the building's been evacuated out front.  Were you the only ones in the lab?"

His expression crumpled with despair.

"No," he managed, panting. "Molly. Molly Hooper, she was - "

Sally's heart shrunk to the size of a stone. The world stopped. When it jerked back into motion again, she heard herself shouting. _"Where is she?"_

"She was in the storage room," Watson managed. "I saw her come running out. I thought she was behind us, but - oh, _Jesus..._ \- we were outside before I realised she - ..."

"Christ..." Sally turned her panic-stricken stare through the open fire doors. They were wide open. The corridor beyond was thick with smoke, swirling and ebbing and brooding - daring her. Daring her to try it. Daring her just to stay there. Her heart began to pound as fiercely as the shrieks of the alarm. "Where did you last see her?"

"Right back in the lab. She might have followed the others."

"No," Sally said, her throat tightening. "She'd have followed you. You and him." That, she knew for sure.

She drew in a breath - perhaps her last lungful of clean air.

"Sergeant Donovan," Watson barked. He knew what she was about to do - and he was about to try and stop her, like he could still pull rank. _Idiot._ "The fire services are on their way. If you go in there, you'll only be giving them another person to find. Don't do it. _Please."_

Sally dumped her bag and coat. They would only slow her down. God, she'd thought it was a heels day. Why couldn't it have been a sneakers day? A fireproof vest day?

"Sergeant!" he half-shouted. "Do you _really_ need me to tell you that's a _bad decision?"_

Sally wrenched off her jacket, grappling in her pocket for her phone.

"Some hero you are," she said, wrapped the jacket tightly around her nose and mouth, switched the torch function of her phone onto full beam, and strode between the open doors.

She heard him shouting after her, his voice fragile and scattered amongst the screaming alarms. Within a few steps, he was gone. He was in another world, and Sally was in this one - a world of smoke and sirens, where even the walls were soon gone, swallowed up into nothing by choking black fumes that seemed to have no origin. She didn't need to see the walls. She knew her way to the labs. She had followed Greg down this corridor, down _this_ stairwell, through _this_ door, a thousand times now - she knew this place. She loved this place.

Greg was in Tenerife. If she lived, he was going to kill her.

As Sally proceeded through the smoke, hugging the left-hand wall and following the map in her mind, that _'if'_ grew larger and larger with every step.

 _If_ she lived.

 _If_ she made it out.

Her eyes burned with toxins and fearless acidic tears as she fought onwards. She kept what little remained of her sight upon the floor, scanning desperately left and right - sweeping each room she passed through, the beam of the torch filtering its way through the smoke. She didn't know what she would find. She just knew she had to find it.

Down another stairwell, along a corridor - the door to the labs. It had sealed as the alarms were activated. Sally screwed her eyes tight shut against the heat and the fumes, checking the handle with the back of her hand - not hot. Not hotter than anything else, at least. She barged the door with her shoulder, unleashing a black gush of air that sizzled against her skin. She choked, clutching the jacket tighter to her mouth. The door had wedged on something on the other side - something fallen.

After two desperate shoves, Sally realised.

She prized it open enough to reach through, then sank to her knees and searched across the floor.

Clothing - soft.

A cardigan.

A body part beneath.

An arm, Sally realised. She followed it up to a shoulder. She hooked her arm around Molly, realising with a lurch that she was trying to be gentle, not wanting to hurt Molly. She could be dead for all that Sally knew. She hauled the other woman's unconscious weight out through the gap in the door, dragging her backwards along the hallway while trying to stay low beneath the smoke.

Through the door to the stairwell, Sally stopped to heaved Molly up against the banister, using it to get a better grip on her. She slung the other woman over her shoulder. They would move faster this way. Molly lolled like a rag-doll, every limb loose and swinging.

Sally started to climb the stairs. Three steps up, the jacket hitched and slipped from her face. She didn't have a hand free to grab it. She let it drop, gritted her teeth and ploughed onwards through the smoke.

Corridor, stairs - doors - _smoke,_ smoke everywhere now - smoke in her lungs - smoke in her veins - the alarms were screaming in her head - Sally was slowing, sinking. _Molly_. She got up. Another corridor, another set of doors. They were suddenly as hard to push open as if they were not hinged at all. The building itself was spinning in the heat, and Sally knew she was losing her grip on her thoughts.

She let them go.

She didn't need to think - just to walk.

She held onto the weight resting heavy over her shoulder, gripping Molly in a hug - their first - maybe their last - burying her weakening fingers into the cardigan whose colour she might never even know.

On through the darkness, on through the alarms - then suddenly, she came upon a door that shouldn't be there.

The mental map in Sally's mind whirled and span and vanished. It was gone.

There was no air. There was only smoke.

She could not breathe.

With her final strength, Sally Donovan rolled Molly gently to the floor - not wanting to hurt her with the fall. It seemed important. Even if she was dead, Sally didn't want her to be harmed.

She slumped to the ground beside Molly, overcome. A thick grey sleep rose up to swallow her. Sally sank into its depths. The world - and everything in it - churned up into smoke.

 

* * *

 

When Sally awoke, there was a hand holding hers.

At first, it was her only sensation; so much so that, for a while, she _was_ that gentle touch and nothing more. She was the quiet melding of fingers, and it was all she needed to be.

After what felt like millennia, she reached an awareness that the fingers were stroking her palm slowly - and through that quiet rhythm, she rediscovered her own breath and her pulse. She began to inhabit her body once more, moving through it slowly as each place came back to her - her breathing lungs, her beating heart - her head, propped up against pillows - her ears, listening to the steady beep of a machine nearby. She coughed a little, discovering her throat. It felt raw and painful and tight.

The fingers tightened around her own.

"Oh - ...!" gasped a voice.

Sally's heart thumped.

"A-Are you awake?" said the voice.

With each blink, more of Sally's vision came back into being - fogged shapes, blurred shadows, hospital lights overhead. Slowly - painfully slowly - the fog formed itself into a person: a gentle face looking down at her, round-eyed and fearful. A mock-layer blue top and a messy blonde ponytail.

"Can you - see me?" Molly Hooper asked, tentatively.

Sally tried a smile. It hurt; everything hurt.

"I can," she said. The sound ripped itself like velcro from the lining of her throat. She winced, groaning - which only hurt more. "Oh - God - ..."

"Don't," Molly begged. "Don't try to talk. You... took a lot of smoke damage. I mean... the chemicals you inhaled, when you - ..." She squeezed Sally's hand, shaking a little. "Well, your throat will be sore - so - so don't speak. It's okay."

Sally swallowed, staring into her face. _But I want to speak._

Molly's eyes shone as she looked down from Sally's bedside. She didn't seem to know whether to smile or cry.

"They said you came back to find me, after I... um, got hit by the door. It just slammed so fast and the alarm made me jump. I... don't remember much after that." Her eyes fogged softly. "Not until I woke up. And they told me what you did, and I... wanted to be here when you came round..."

She looked down at their fingers, suddenly embarrassed to find they were joined atop the sheets.

She let Sally go, gently - curling her hand back into her lap.

A tiny silence passed.

"You're Greg Lestrade's sergeant," Molly said, with a small smile.

Sally smiled, too. It was good just to listen to her - just to look at her.

It had been that way for months now.

She always loved coming to the labs. Just to catch a glimpse of the specialist registrar in her cardigans, who was so shy - so awkward - who looked like she would feel soft.

"I've seen you come into the lab before," Molly went on. Sally's heart jumped a little. "John - told me your name's Sally..." Molly blushed, looking down at her knees. "So - thank you for coming back for me, Sally. The fire team don't think they would have found me in time. You saved my life. Um, I got you a card - it's... in with the others, somewhere..."

A sizeable forest of cards already covered the bedside cabinet.

"And Greg's flight gets back from Tenerife in - ..." Molly checked her watch. "... three hours, so... so you'll have lots of people to fuss over you. You deserve it. You're - really brave. I can't believe you did that for me..."

Molly looked down at her hands.

"I - can't believe anyone would do that for me."

Sally opened her mouth to speak, her chest twinging. Molly stopped her with a little grin.

"It's okay," she said. "You - don't have to - ... I know it's embarrassing. Um, I owe you a drink - a big one. When you're feeling better."

She nervously glanced across at the clock on the wall. It was coming up to eight AM. Sally didn't even know what day it was, or how long she'd been unconscious.

She just knew it was eight AM, on the best day of her life.

"I have to get off in a minute... I've got my check-up. I had my mask on when the fire started, so I didn't get nearly as much as you, but - … well, better safe than sorry…"

Molly hesitated, with a little laugh that Sally wished she could put in a locket and keep forever.

"I guess you don't go in for that, though. Rushing into burning buildings. You're - … God, you're so brave. You carried me all that way. And you don't even know me."

Sally gazed at her.

 _Let me,_  she thought. _Let me know the hell out of you._

Nervously Molly picked up her bag. She got out of her chair, fiddling a little with the tiny green alien charm that dangled from her bag strap.

"So... you get lots of rest," she said. "And thank you - and - I'll come visit again, I promise. So I can say thank you properly. Greg said he'll come straight to see you when his flight lands."

 _To kill me,_  Sally thought. Funnily, she now felt like she'd die happy.

"Bye," Molly said, tentative, as she drew away from the bed. "Thanks for - being my hero, Sally."

Sally swallowed.

"Bye," she croaked. The sound tore her throat open anew. She didn't care.

Molly smiled, bright as a little songbird. She paused in the door to wave, bit her lip - then quietly left. Her sneakers squeaked after her along the corridor. She was gone.

Sally let her head fall back into the pillows with a flump.

She closed her eyes and took a long breath, drawing purified hospital air into the tattered wreckage of her lungs. She let it clean her. She let it settle her heartbeat.

She'd never been a hero before, she thought.

It felt good.

It felt like the start of something wonderful.

As bad decisions went, this one might just turn out to be the best.


End file.
